


Do We Not Live in Dreams?

by Dracavia



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Feels, Fluffy Death Fic, Loki-centric, M/M, mascara alert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-03
Updated: 2015-11-03
Packaged: 2018-04-29 19:08:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5139224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dracavia/pseuds/Dracavia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life. Death. None of it is as black or white as many people imagine. Especially not when you've caught the attention of the universe and one of its avatars. Sometimes you still have work to do and things to learn, and the universe will give you a way to do it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do We Not Live in Dreams?

**Author's Note:**

> **Much** thanks go to Arebell (aka <http://dumb-ways-to-live.tumblr.com/>) for going above and beyond on this fest. She drew not one, but three illustrations for this fic! **Please** make sure you go [leave her some love on her post as well](http://dumb-ways-to-live.tumblr.com/post/132485622899).

_Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?_  
_\- Alfred Lord Tennyson_

~*~*~*~*~*~

As many things do, it started because he was bored.

The deception had been far too easy. Not a single member of court showed the slightest indication they suspected that their King was anything other than what he seemed.

In fact the people seemed so grateful that Odin was actually _doing_ something about their safety and diplomatic relations that they were ready to accept nearly any eccentricity of habit that may have developed. The whispers around court - and Loki had always kept his ears keen to them, even more so now - suggested that all of the changes were due to the deaths of the Queen and her youngest son coming so close together, only to be followed by the eldest's abdication.

Of course the truth was something close, but still a bit different. The deaths - at least that of Frigga's - weighed so heavily upon Odin's soul that upon knowing she'd been avenged it fell into a sleep deep enough Loki suspected he would not wake again until he reached Mistress Death's judgement. If it had not been for his own intervention, Thor would have had to abdicate to a golden cloud.

And so by day Loki worked to secure Asgard's future; rekindling neglected alliances, forging others anew, rebuilding the homes of its people, and securing a new heir should Thor never prove suitable. All of his work would ensure that Odin's remembered legacy would be that of a caring, but firm king, whom spent his last years devoted to his people. He wasn't certain Odin deserved such benevolence, but it suited his purposes and he thought Frigga would have approved.

The nights though, those were Loki's to do as he pleased.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Steve sat down at the table in the commissary, setting his tray on the table with a tired sigh.

"Poor night's sleep?"

Steve looked up at Natasha and he looked like he'd hardly slept at all. "Apparently. I slept the whole night through, but I had a really vivid dream." He grimaced at the memory of it, which caught Natasha's curiosity.

"Oh?"

Before replying, Steve sat up a bit straighter to look around the large room. Seeming satisfied, he looked back at her. "Loki."

Well that explained who he'd been looking for. Clint had done a lot to move on past their first mission as a team, but he still had a bit of a tick whenever anyone mentioned Loki's name. Even knowing the madman was dead only did so much.

"New York?"

"Well it was in New York, but it wasn't the battle. He'd shown up specifically to taunt Thor, kidnapping Jane to lure him to Central Park. We all went, certain it was a trap. And then - while he had what turned out to be an illusion distract us by giving this huge over-the-top monologue - he started turning everything around the city into ice cream."

"Ice cream."

"I know!" Steve looked utterly exasperated with his own subconscious. "I mean I know it was a dream, but really..."

"Well what happened next?" Sam sat down beside him. "I don't believe in any of that mystical dream reading nonsense, but that doesn't mean the dream isn't connected to something your mind is trying to work out, in some sort of obscure way."

"We realised the speech was a distraction when we heard the screech of halting traffic. Everything was chaos; cars, bikes, traffic lights, mail boxes, you name it, it was melting. We were chasing him around the city, but he kept disappearing and reappearing randomly. But the strangest thing was that no one was getting hurt."

"Interesting..." Steve gave him a sharp look. "No, go on," Sam urged.

"Well there were bumps and bruises, but nothing serious. And Loki was grinning and laughing the whole time, like it was some big prank." Steve looked at Sam with a quirked brow. "So what do you get from that?"

"Not much, except maybe that you wish our fights were a little less life or death sometimes."

Steve gave a heavy sigh. "Ain't that the truth."

Silence followed for a moment, and then, "I had a dream about Loki last week."

Both men looked at Natasha expectantly.

"He was taking over a zoo with an army of penguins. He declared they would no longer be subject to the tyranny of the lions being the favourite attraction."

"I think that says more about what you thought of Loki than what it says about you," Sam said gravely. Then they all burst out laughing and went back to their breakfast.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Baldur would make a suitable heir. Raised as he was by the reclusive Harii warriors, he was an extremely capable hand in a fight. Unlike his older half-brother, he was level-headed as well, and - when time allowed - willing to listen to council before deliberating on a decision.

It was a steadiness that would see Asgard well through the changing times that were no doubt ahead.

Yes, Loki was pleased with his choice. Odin's secret insurance policy would work just as designed, and none too soon either. Loki could feel Odin's failing health, even with his own efforts he doubted the elder king's body would last more than a decade at most. That he would wake from his sleep in that time even less likely.

Loki had time left to put his plans in motion, but it would take all of his time and effort to see them through to fruition. Fortunately his dreams remained a refuge for his less structured impulses.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"You look absolutely nackered, Doc. Nightmares get ya' again?"

Bruce all but collapsed into the chair across from Pete, and gave the old station hand a wan smile. "Variation on the theme. It was a new one, but the point was still the same."

His subconscious had tortured him plenty about the people he'd hurt as the Hulk, but this was the first time it had ever suggested Loki had deserved anything less than he'd got. The whole of the Battle of New York in fact was something he'd thought his conscience was clear on, but last night the Hulk had been the one tossed around like a doll. Maybe his subconscious was just running out of material based in reality to punish him with. It was as good an explanation as any.

"If you don't mind my sayin', Doc, but maybe you're the one needing help right now."

"I'll take it under advisement, Pete, but right now what I could really use is a cup of that sludge you call coffee."

"Suit yourself," Pete said and reached for a mug. Bruce knew he wouldn't bring the idea up again, not for at least a week.

That, along with the remoteness of the outpost on this vast Australian cattle station, is what kept Bruce here. Pete showed his concern, but he never pushed or pried. Let Bruce keep his secrets. If he was lucky - not that he put much stock in luck, he figured if karma really were a thing it was stacked pretty heavily against him by now - he'd get to live out the rest of his days here in quiet obscurity, until he died of old age. It certainly didn't seem like anything else was going to do it.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Some dreams Loki enjoyed more than others. Some he expected to enjoy and found hollow. The best dreams, though, were the ones where he hadn't expected the outcome and they surprised him. So little did these days with the far sight of the throne.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"By the Norns, what is _this_?" Loki looked around the massive hanger in which he stood. The floor was full of sheet metal and components, some of which upon closer inspection appeared to be Iron Man components scaled up about 10 times.

Stepping out from behind the construction of a gigantic arm, Tony Stark flipped up his welding visor. "Touch anything Princess and I'll make sure you die a second time."

Loki grinned at that. "A second time. Are you saying I've been dead before?"

"Sorry to break it to you, sweet cheeks, but you're dead now and a figment of my imagination. Usually I get Rhodey, Bruce or JARVIS when I need someone to bounce ideas off of," Tony grimaced at the mention of the latter two, "but for some inexplicable reason my sub-subconscious has decided to give me you tonight."

"You're aware this is a dream?" In all the dreams Loki had visited so far, not a one had realised when he arrived it was a dream.

Tony rolled his eyes and headed back the way he'd come. "As if I'd be building a Jäger without even bots to help me in the real world."

"That is enough for you to know this is a dream? People dream stranger things without making the realisation."

"Most people haven't sought lucid dream training to overcome a planted nightmare and help cure their PTS."

"Hmm, true enough," Loki conceded, looking at Tony with new interest.

"Look princess, not that this little jaunt into self reflection hasn't been great - though it really hasn't - if you're not here to help, scram. I've got some complicated armature to get working here."

"What exactly are you building? You called it a 'Jäger'. A hunter then, of what? It seems more like a large scale model of one of your suits."

"Well it is based off the suits, and off a concept from a movie. In the film they were mostly nuclear powered - which of course they would be if the military was making them - but I think I can do better with arc tech."

"To what point and purpose?"

Tony gave him an unimpressed look. "The Hulk won't always be around when armoured space whales descend from the sky and I won't always be able to run something like the Hulk-buster armour that can compare. I need something I can pilot remotely with VR and train someone I trust to use it even when I can't."

"And that's what these 'Jägers' are?"

"Not exactly, but they were also as tall as the Statue of Liberty and this will be under 100 feet tall. Like I said, inspired by, not replicated."

Loki looked at the arm thoughtfully. "What is the difficulty you're having then?"

"I can't just scale the suit up, at this size the hydraulic joints just aren't holding up. So I've got to start from scratch."

"You're trying a cabling system instead."

"Yeah, I think the reduced rigidity will improve how it holds up to the stress. Problem is getting the right tensile strength in the cables, and building in enough redundancy without overweighting it."

As they began to dig around amongst the assembly together it was surprisingly easy to forget they had once been enemies.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Tormenting his perceived tormentors only proved entertaining for so long. If Loki had learned anything from walking in Tony's dreams, it was that sometimes it was more interesting to see where the others' dreams led.

It proved useful, but there were also times it proved unsettling.

~*~*~*~*~*~

It was a mead hall just as Loki had always remembered them on Asgard. Thor wasn't hard to spot, holding court with his friends and admirers both. The hall was well lit, comfortably warm and filled with the sounds of joy and laughter.

Loki had never felt more alone than in places like this, except perhaps for his first time on the throne.

He knew the moment Thor saw him, the lights around them flickering along with his smile. Loki didn't take it as a cue to approach however. Rather, he acquired a glass of the honeyed wine he'd always preferred and chose an empty table in a dim corner to wait.

He took a sip and a flood of mixed emotions washed over him. Warm and happy - though now bitter-sweet - memories of drinking the wine with Frigga as she taught him her arts. Dark and sour memories of places such as this, where his preference for the smooth wine over the hoppy and more _manly_ mead had been yet another point of scorn.

Gradually the other patrons disappeared - though whether they had left or simply ceased to be in that ethereal way of dreams was impossible to say - and the hall grew dim, lit only by the light of the coals in the hearths bordering the great room. When they were all that was left, Thor stood and went over to a cask to refill his tankard, before joining Loki at his table. He sat in the chair beside Loki with a heavy sigh, and took a long draw from his mug.

This too was familiar, and such moments were amongst the only he remembered fondly from these halls once his youth had passed. Not because they only came after a hunt or other adventure had gone wrong, but because they were amongst the only times Loki felt as though he were truly equal to the shining brother he had so often looked up to as a child. In defeat they could share the remorse equally in a way Loki's craftier arts would never be equal when celebrating a success.

"Haunting me once more..." Thor murmured into the silence, though like everything else about Thor even his quiet wasn't small. The words rumbled through the empty room like a distantly approaching storm.

"Do I haunt you often?" Loki had meant it to be a tease, but his interest in the answer was too keen for anything but sincerity.

"Often enough."

"I'd have thought you'd be relieved to be quit of me. I was nothing but trouble for you the last few years."

"Not at the end. I saw the brother I thought I'd lost resurface from the bitterness." Thor looked at him sorrowfully. "After New York I thought my brother had died in spirit in that fall from the bridge... But that wasn't it. It was the moment you gave up on us to dedicate yourself to being the worst of everything that was ever said of you."

"Not _all_ of you."

"No I suppose not, you'd forgive mother anything."

Loki grimaced at the mention of Frigga, but he forced it away with a wry smile. "You weren't _completely_ hopeless."

Thor gave a surprised chuckle, but it quickly became something somber once more. "So it was just father and the rest of the world then."

"Your father, not mine."

"How can you discount hundreds of years as a family so easily?"

"Easily?!" Loki laughed with bitter incredulity. "Nothing about the realisation of what I was felt easy, I assure you."

"Jotun..."

"A _pawn_."

"Surely you cannot believe that is all you were."

"To Frigga, certainly not. I was the second child she wanted but could not have herself, she confessed as much to me in the cells. It was why she allowed the deception of my heritage, it allowed her the illusion I was of her womb as you had been."

Thor took a moment to consider this, but found nothing he could contest. Instead he asked, "And me, do you think I thought you a pawn?"

Loki smiled wryly. "Only in the way any charismatic oaf considers all those around them to be possible accomplices in their desires."

"But in Odin you saw something more malicious."

"If I had not been Laufey's abandoned son I have great doubt he'd have rescued me, let alone fostered me himself. Where does that show his priorities lay? If I was ever truly his son, it was second to my place as a tool. He admitted as much himself while you were banished."

"Did he really, or have you twisted his words in your mind to mean the worst possible meaning regardless of intent?"

"You are implying the slight is all in my mind, as you did once before when you accosted me on Earth." That the conversation had taken a direction Loki didn't appreciate was becoming quite clear. "I assure you that I am more than sufficiently familiar with being slighted to know when I am being done so."

"Once perhaps, but I am not convinced you were clear-headed enough in your final years to truly do so. You kept account of each slight, no matter how minor and built a case against the world in your mind that you were without reproach and we all belittled you unfairly-"

Loki's glass slammed down so hard it would surely have shattered had this not been a dream. "Did you not? You and your friends were hardly innocent of belittling my skills, which you regularly benefited from. Skills you might have praised if I'd been female. Why did Lady Sif earn praise for her skills, but I earned derision for mine? Asgard is no better than Earth when it comes to the inequalities of the sexes and their gender roles!"

"Perhaps..." From his tone it did seem like Thor had taken the point and would give it further thought, but he wasn't done. "However, there are plenty that have faced great belittlement without becoming as bitter and vicious as yourself. Stark used such derision from his own father to spur himself to even greater achievements. It saddens me sometimes to think what you might have achieved if you had done similarly."

"Well I am sorry I have not lived up to the standards set by some mortal that has lived but a handful of years." Loki stood, he'd had enough of this dream. "He is your shield brother now, if you prefer him so much more perhaps you should formally adopt him as kin. You don't have another younger brother to lord over anymore after all."

Loki started for the door of the hall, but Thor wasn't content to let him have the last word.

"Was it worth it, spending your last years in such bitterness? If your soul carried it all with you into death, I fear how bleak your final rest may be."

Loki's steps faltered, those words were uncomfortably close to those he'd already heard from a source harder to ignore, and he had no better answer now than he'd had then. Never one to admit when he was wrong, however, he straightened himself up and walked out of the dream.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"Thor would have preferred to have you as a brother rather than me."

Tony flipped his welding shield up and frowned. "I thought we stopped with the unpleasant introspection after your first appearance."

Loki scowled at him.

"Okaaay, introspection it is, and on what level are we making this assertion? Cause if we're just talking about egomaniacal, quasi-homicidal tendencies, you have to admit mine are channelled in a much more productive and socially acceptable direction than yours were."

"He thinks I died a bitter fool."

"Well first off the only time Thor has thought you truly a fool is when you allied yourself with Thanos, because how on any level was that a good decision?"

"It got me back to the Nine Realms alive."

"If my subconscious is right about that being your main motivation, wow, what a way to cause selfish collateral damage."

"Would you have preferred I used a remote power station where I could have brought the full fleet through before you and your comrades could arrive?"

"...Okay, that's an unsettling point that's accurately made, if your goal was just to get home and not actually to take over. But that then suggests everything about that invasion was staged to look like you wanted to win when you didn't actually."

Loki just looked at him levelly, waiting for the penny to drop.

"Which... Damn, that's _exactly_ what it was! The performance in Stuttgart was designed to get you caught, and maintaining it is what let me predict you'd use Stark Tower."

Loki gave him a slow, mocking applause for his revelation.

"Very funny, but what does this have to do with bitterness and Thor supposedly liking me better?"

"He is of the opinion you use the scorn you have experienced to better yourself and I just allowed my scorn to make me bitter. As though I did not spend centuries trying to better myself and my skills so they would recognise me rather than scorn me!"

"Ahh, I remember that stage, and then with the help of a whole lot of booze I made it to the next stage. Fuck 'em."

"I beg your pardon?" Loki's righteous indignation was derailed by the seeming non-sequitur.

"Fuck 'em, it's the next stage. It's when you realise the world is full of idiots who have nothing better to do with their lives than belittle you because 1) they're jealous of your brilliance, 2) they're so far up their own prejudiced asses they couldn't see the truth if it did the hula right in front of their noses, or 3) they really are just plain stupid and you should pity their pathetic existence. You decide who really matters, and everyone else can take a long walk off a short pier. You get what I'm saying?"

"Colourfully put, but yes. However there is one obvious flaw with that logic."

"And what's that?"

"What happens when someone matters even when you wish they didn't, and they fit in one of those three categories?"

"Ah... In my case, he died before I hit the 'Fuck 'em' stage, so I'm not sure I can help you there. I mean he got relegated to the doesn't matter list eventually, but he was already the spectre of a memory by the time I realised there was no possible way to live up to a dead man's expectations. And even then..."

"Yes?"

"I found myself unintentionally trying to now and again."

"Then the problem is I did not reach the so called 'Fuck 'em' stage until the moment of my death, and even when I wished to believe I did not care for what he thought of my final actions, some part of me still did..."

There was a long moment of silence between them, but Tony never had liked silence.

"Shame you're dead and a figment of my imagination, I've been told moments of revelation like this are the perfect time to confront your demons, inner or outer. Not that I have first hand experience in the outer ones since a car crash stole my opportunity."

"Yes... a shame..." Loki looked lost in thought for a moment. When he came back to the present it seemed the moment for introspection had passed. "Have you made any progress on that leg assembly?"

"Yeah, the extra set of pulleys seems to have done the trick, come look..." Tony led him away to examine the piece of the robot they had last worked upon, now modified per their discussion.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Perhaps it was because even when Tony had mocked him in the past it had never felt belittling the way censure in Asgard had that Tony's words didn't taste quite as sour as Thor's had. Even so, they wouldn't leave his mind. Tony's regret at not being able to confront his father about it all even more so.

It could be dangerous, trying to get his own answers. He didn't know what effect sharing the same physical space would have on entering another's dreams, nor what sort of dreams the Odin-sleep might engender, but he felt like he had to try.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"What have you done to me?!"

"Nothing so heinous as your tone implies. If it weren't for me at best you'd already be dead, at worst you'd be a useless glowing lump on a bed."

"You've _stolen_ my body and use it to pose on my throne."

"It didn't take long after I told you of my death for you to abandon them both yourself."

"And I'm expected to believe you didn't have a hand in that?"

"If you can't see what the truth about that is then you're already too far gone for me to bother with this conversation."

Loki stared levelly at the man he had once called father, who glowered back at him. Odin's scowl was somehow made deeper by the lack of an eye, but Loki was unmoved.

In the end it was Odin who looked away first with a shake of his head. "No, that I cannot rightfully lay the blame for at your feet. Except in that the false report of your demise was one grief too many for these old bones."

Loki snorted derisively. "You claim to have grieved me?"

"On more than one occasion, though your lack of remorse on your return from Midgard made tempering it with anger much easier."

"I'd have thought my remorselessness would have pleased you. It just proved I'm the Jotun monster you always knew was lurking beneath the surface."

"Is that what you-" Odin gave a heavy sigh. "Of course it is. What made you a monster was your wanton disregard for life, not the planet of your birth."

"You hardly have room to lecture me on the sanctity of mortal life. You were more than ready to allow Thor's Jane to perish."

"Allowing nature to take its course with a single mortal is a far cry from engineering the deaths of scores! I am king, I can hardly make an exception any time one of my sons takes a passing fancy to a mortal."

" _Son_ ," Loki snapped, "you have even less claim to Baldur than you had to me."

"...Perhaps you are right, as he was not even in my mind as I spoke the words." Loki gave a derisive snort at that. "You are protective of the boy."

"He has a purpose to fulfil, Asgard requires an heir."

"Do you always lie so poorly to yourself? It may have started with that, but you are fond of him."

Loki was silent for a moment. He had come here to demand answers and instead it seamed Odin would force him to admit things he hadn't yet even to himself.

"There are moments when he reminds me of myself when I was young and..."

"Unjaded?"

"I was going to say foolishly naive, but I suppose it's the same thing."

"Interesting. From what I have been able to see from my sleep, I'd have said he puts me in mind of Thor, but with his enthusiasm tempered."

Loki smiled wryly. "That is why he makes such a suitable heir. He has the best of each of us, without the worst. His faults are his own and he lacks experience, but with a bit of luck he will be a great king someday."

"How do you manage to see this so clearly and yet manage not to see why your actions on Earth were wrong?"

"How do you manage not to see that you're a raging hypocrite?" With a single question Odin had managed to erase any good humour talk of Baldur had brought to Loki.

"You chastise me for the deaths of a tiny fraction of the already over-populated mortals in my efforts to return home, and yet when Thor instigated a fight over a mere insult that led to the deaths of much longer lived and far less prolific beings the offence was only that he might have started a war against the Asir people. And _then_ when I sought to protect the people by removing the threat, you remonstrate me! Exactly what is the message you wish to convey old man, because it has certainly not been the sanctity of all life!"

"Destroying the Jotun would not have changed that you were born of them."

Loki looked stricken. "Why... Why did you ever bother to take me from that chamber? If I was always fated to never be enough, not even to be the bargaining chip you'd sought, I'd have been better off left there to die as intended."

"Oh Loki... I took you to play a role, yes, but your mother and I came to love you as our own. As much as we loved Thor. _That_ is why I never told you, why you were not groomed to play the part of the bridge. We made the selfish choice to keep you for ourselves."

"If you loved me so much, then why was my head destined for the chopping block? Why was I discarded to the cells to be forgotten?"

"The people were calling for your death. Your mother allowed me to save face by pleading for your imprisonment before all of the court."

"And why not banishment to learn a lesson as you'd done with Thor?"

"Because I doubted my own judgement of you. I had never thought you capable of the kind of destruction you had wrought on Earth or Jotunheim, and I doubted my ability to find you a place that would show you the error of your ways rather than simply making the situation worse." Odin looked at him a long moment. "I still find my judgement in your regard incomplete at best, I never did understand you as well as your mother did."

Loki wasn't sure what to say to that and they stood in silence for some time. Ultimately Loki's instinct for self protection manifested as defiance, as it often did.

"I meant what I said to Thor as I was dying, I didn't do it for you."

"No, you did it for her. She always did deserve your regard more than I... You continue to refer to your death as true, and yet here you stand before me."

"This is hardly the physical realm," Loki said with a bitter smile. "I've learned far more about Death than you realise. It's not so simple as we all like to think."

"...Well whatever it is that's keeping you here, I hope you find what you need. I was certainly never able to give it to you. And... not that you care any longer for my regard, but if you continue to do right by the people as you appear to be doing, you shall have it. For what the regard of an old fool is worth anyway."

"Not much... but perhaps as much as a father's."

There were no smiles or hugs, too much had come to pass for that, too many wounds that had scarred as they'd healed on both sides. However, as the dream faded around them, there might just have been the seed of an understanding.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Frigga had warned him more than once he could be as rash as Thor when he was emotional enough. He'd taken it for the tease that it probably only half was. Perhaps he should have listened harder to the half that was genuine warning.

Then again with the only person in the universe who had any faith left in him dead at the hands of that creature, it's possible no amount of warning would have kept him from his revenge, no matter the cost. It had been a pleasant surprise to see Thor grieve at his imminent demise, though the whole affair had been much more dramatic than he'd envisioned for himself when he'd been younger and had intended to die a wizened old monarch. Of course that dream had been discarded the moment he'd let himself fall from the Rainbow Bridge.

Loki looked around himself, but there was nothing to see, a never ending expanse of black surrounded him. He'd have thought he'd somehow survived being run through and was just trapped on the edge of unconsciousness if it weren't for the fact he could see himself standing there on nothing.

If this was the afterlife it wasn't living up to the stories in the least.

As though his acceptance of his death had triggered something, the space before Loki seemed to become less dark. Brighter would have been the wrong word because there was still no discernible light source, and yet a cloaked figure slowly became visible as the shadows receded.

The hood was pushed back and Loki's mind couldn't decide whether he was looking at a beautiful woman with fathomless eyes or a bleached skull.

Loki smiled his most bitter of smiles. "Escorted to Helheim by Death herself. Surely my final act was not so heroic as to warrant such an honour."

" _Indeed it was not._ " Even though her lips never moved, her voice echoed within his mind, reaching uncomfortably into the deepest recesses.

"To what do I owe the honour of your presence then?" Loki asked with a grimace.

" _I bring you a warning..._ " She tilted her head, looking at him thoughtfully. " _And an offer. Your stay in Helheim will not be a pleasant one, I foresee an eternity alone in an icy barren landscape._ "

"Lovely. It's so cheery to know Hel has as poor an opinion of my life as Odin did."

" _Do not blame Her for your fate, Loki the Lost, it is no one's doing but your own. Helheim is only ever a reflection of one's deepest thoughts and feelings. The cold in your heart and the righteousness of solitude you hold about yourself like a mark of beleaguered honour have created what is waiting for you._ "

"If you think for one moment I'll agree those fools ever had a point-"

" _Their opinions do not matter in the realm of Helheim, only your own._ "

"Well I'd hardly choose to punish myself."

" _Would you not? You have been doing a grand job of it already these last decades. Bitterness of spirit serves to punish none but the one who harbours it._ "

Loki seethed, but he remained silent. For all that he had done, it had never served to change the minds of those around him, so what could he say to counter her?

" _Which brings me to my offer. You have twice now slipped through my grasp. Once when Odin found you as I approached and again when you were plucked from your fall. I am willing to wait a bit longer to reap your soul in exchange for your aide in arranging my suitor's place at my side._ "

"You want me to help kill Thanos. There are plenty who would love to send him to you already."

" _That he will arrive is inevitable, but he has lost his way and I wish to claim him before he upsets the balance any further._ "

"Why me and not someone still living?"

" _I appreciate your talents, and you have seen much that the champions have not. Work to send him to me, and as long as you're doing so your spirit may remain amongst the living._ "

"So you'll temporarily resurrect me while I help kill Thanos so I can delay my icy fate a few years. I might prefer ice to being your errand boy."

" _You miss the point, Loki the Lost-_ "

"I do wish you'd stop calling me that."

" _Why should I not, it is how you see yourself. A man with no home, trapped between worlds without an idea of where you belong._ " Mistress Death gave him a penetrating look that made Loki feel like the child such an ageless being must certainly see him as. " _I cannot resurrect you, to give life is beyond my power. I will return your spirit to the realm of the living where you will exist as any other untethered spirit, reaching the living by way of the land of dreams or sharing a mortal's form. The closer they are to my keeping, the easier that will be. And in return for carrying out my request, you will have more time to reconsider your life, so that when I do hand you on to Hel, perhaps you will add something of greater value to her realm than ice._ "

"A ghost then." Loki sighed and considered the offer. All of this talk of introspection seemed futile, but he was in no hurry to face an icy grave. "Very well, you have your bargain, but I want more detailed terms. As they have been set there are far too many openings for interpretation for you to take advantage of."

Mistress Death grinned, and it was unsettling enough stretched over her skeleton smile to send a shiver down Loki's back. " _And the same for you. Let us talk terms then._ "

As they negotiated their contract, Loki truly hoped he was not being tricked by an even greater trickster.

~*~*~*~*~*~

The Hulk was running amok through down-town Johannesburg once more, but this time there was no Iron Man to rein him in or redirect him to less populated areas, and the devastation in his wake was just growing. With every flash of light, every car horn or siren scream the over-stimulation to the Hulk's senses sent him into an even greater panic-fuelled rage.

With a _slam_ his panicked flight came to a stop, and the Hulk looked around him for a means of escape, but there was none. He was surrounded on all sides by some sort of forcefield of shimmering green and gold energy. The Hulk's fear only grew at being trapped, especially as a mist rose up from nowhere to fill the space. He pounded on one of the walls as it enveloped him and tried to hold his breath, but he had to breathe eventually. Even the Hulk couldn't hold his breath forever, and when he did, he felt the grip of unconsciousness pulling him down.

Bruce woke and there was nothing but blue sky above him, the sun shining down from an angle that suggested it was either quite early or quite late in the day. As recent events came back to him, he was surprised to find he was unfettered and slowly sat up to see he had been laying on the roof of a building. Now that he concentrated he could hear the sounds of the city around him, the sirens in the distance, smoke rising up from buildings well to his right. The bleakness of remembering what he'd done settled over him.

"That was not your fault."

It took a moment for the words to settle in, but the moment he recognised that voice Bruce was on his feet and turning to face the source. "Loki! Thor said you were dead."

"And so I am, and yet here I am before you as well." Loki smiled at him. "Dreams are a strange thing, aren't they?"

"Dreams... I'm asleep? But I just woke up."

"Did you, or were you asleep within a dream. You've been here before, think and remember. The destruction didn't reach this level in reality."

"...Tony..." The memories of what really happened in Johannesburg began to come back to him. "Tony was there, and he stopped me before it could get as bad as Harlem." He looked back to Loki with a frown.

"If you're part of my dream, and you want me to know it's a dream, why haven't I just woken up for real?"

"Because when you're awake you'll go right back to feeling a crushing guilt that will leave you impotent to be useful to anyone but..." Loki tilted his head to the side in thought, like he was trying to find a memory, "Ah yes, 'Ol Pete, how quaint."

"Pete's a good man, I won't hear him put down even in my own subconscious."

"There is nothing wrong with him, he has lived an average life, doing average things, and been satisfied with it. There is something to be commended in finding your life satisfactory, no matter how mediocre." Bruce was surprised to find Loki's words sounded like they were entirely devoid of irony or sarcasm. "But neither of us is hardly average, are we?"

"No, we're both monsters."

Bruce blinked and Loki was in nothing but his black trousers and boots as his skin turned blue and ridged, just as Thor had described the Jotun that Loki was supposedly a child of despite his normal appearance.

"This is not what made me a monster, just as your green side doesn't define you as one either. It is the actions of a man that make him monstrous. Thor when he would kill a man for an insult, that was monstrous. Tony, when he disregarded the lives of those his weapons killed because they were 'the enemy', was monstrous. Natasha, when she was a weapon aimed by others to kill without remorse or conscience, was monstrous. When I killed not with the aim or protecting life that was in danger, but instead so I didn't need to face what I'd been born? That's when I was a monster."

The blue faded and Loki's normal clothes and appearance were once more in place. "When the real version of this happened," Loki threw an arm out toward the city, "was it truly the destruction you sought or were you merely trying to flee from what frightened you to your very core?"

"...I'm dangerous, regardless of my intentions."

"Everyone has the potential to be dangerous, Dr. Banner. Even your 'Ol Pete. Put a gun in his hand when he's not in his right mind, sit him behind the wheel of a vehicle when he's too deep in his cups. Any everyday individual has the potential to cause death or destruction, even unintentionally. Shall we disperse all cities and demand people keep their density to a minimum so that we might reduce our contact with one another and our ability to unintentionally cause each other's destruction?"

"You're exaggerating."

"I'm making a point. You're hiding yourself away to avoid contact in hopes it'll mean you can't unintentionally hurt someone innocent. By doing so, you've abandoned those that need you."

"No one needs me."

"Who will Tony have in his lab who will understand him quite so well, and perhaps see with such clarity since Ultron when his vision has run amok? Jarvis is gone. For all that he's a piece of the Vision, they are not the same entity, and there is nothing to tie the Vision to his side. Col. Rhodes has his own life and responsibilities that have long meant he is away from Tony's side more than he is there."

"I'm sure he can find some other brain to bounce ideas off of."

"The Avengers then. How shall they fill the hole left by the Hulk in their ranks?"

"Tony, Thor and Cap can all be heavy hitters. The Hulk wasn't called in often anyway."

"Tony is but an average, mortal man, in the physical sense. He will not be Iron Man forever, and trying could very well kill him. And when the Hulk was called in, was it not because he was needed to turn the tide?"

"Other meta-humans are showing up, I'm sure they can find one or two people to take his place in the ranks."

"And when the threat isn't human? The army I led to New York was borrowed, Thor warned you of that. Thanos is still out there, and he has plenty more where they came from. It may very well take every able and willing man and woman to stop him when he next sets his sights upon Earth. The Ultron initiative failed, something else must be done to prepare. Something that doesn't involve risking nuclear winter to take it from the sky. Can you truly look me in the eye and say that hiding here on this ranch is the _less_ selfish action when that threat remains? How can you make up for your perceived shortcomings by playing doctor to cows?"

"You want me to go back."

Loki looked at him like he was an idiot. "No, I wish you to take flight for the moon. _Yes,_ you stubborn man, that is exactly what I have been saying for some minutes now."

"I'm not sure if I can."

"Then you are a coward and they truly are best off without you."

"I don't think I like being lectured to and scolded by a megalomaniac."

"You're not supposed to."

"I'll think about it."

"Don't think too long. If you're hearing about Thanos' return on the evening news, then it will have already been too late."

Loki turned and walked away. He slammed the door of the roof closed behind him and with it Bruce woke up, for real this time, with a start.

It was the clearest and most vivid dream he could remember having had in a long time, and it had given him a lot to think about.

~*~*~*~*~*~

When Loki arrived in the hanger he was greeted with a bright smile.

"I was wondering if you'd be tonight's guest." Tony set aside his welder and started pulling off his gear.

"Oh? Was there a particular reason you were expecting me?"

Tony's grin grew even wider. "I don't need visits from imaginary Rhodeys and Bruces when I've got the real thing staying in the tower." The last of his gear off, Tony turned away from his work and gestured for Loki to follow him. He was walking towards a door Loki had never noticed before. "Come on. I'm not really in the mood to work tonight, but it would have been pathetic to drink alone, even in my dreams."

"So Dr. Banner has returned from whence he fled."

Tony turned around with a frown, walking the last few feet to the door backwards. "If you're going to be snarky about it I'll kick you out and celebrate alone after all."

That caught Loki off guard, he hadn't actually intended for his words to be scathing, but the tone was nonetheless. It bared thinking about later.

"My apologies, I had meant it as an inquiry, not a reprimand."

"Good." Tony opened the door and led Loki through into a facsimile of the renovated - once more Stark Tower - sitting room in Tony's penthouse. "Because if my subconscious is getting jealous of my waking friends I might just actually need that therapy Clint keeps teasing me about."

Jealousy, is that what had prompted his tone? It was unsettling that he couldn't immediately refute that accusation.

"It's already bad enough you're my subconscious' favourite face to wear. I decided it's better not to poke at that bees' nest a while ago."

"Afraid of what you'll find?" Loki grinned at him impishly. Teasing Tony was footing he was far more comfortable with.

"Afraid I won't be as scared of what I find as I should be."

Well that was interesting indeed. He must be growing on the eccentric inventor more than he'd realised.

"What'll you have to drink? It's my dream, I bet I can conjure up what whatever you can think of."

"Well then, how about the nicest honey wine you can think up?"

Tony stared at him a moment and Loki braced himself for the inevitable derision. He shouldn't have asked for the wine, he found Tony far too disarming and he was about to pay for that.

Except it never came. Tony just turned to the wall behind the bar.

"I don't know why I expected obscure Bavarian lager, of course my subconscious would have better taste than Thor." Tony flashed him a smile over his shoulder. "Simple but classic, and without hops to hide any mistakes, requiring perfect execution to achieve it's full potential."

This is why Loki became so disarmed around this mortal. Tony had yet to live down to his expectations.

With a flourish Tony turned around and placed a wineglass filled with an amber Meade and an elderflower garnish in front of Loki.

"There's probably some sort of metaphor for my life in that glass, but let's pretend for a moment it's just a drink." Tony lifted up a glass of well aged scotch. "To personal revelations, because we've both had a few of those lately-"

'You've no idea how right you are,' Loki thought wryly.

"and now Bruce has had on that brought him home."

"To revelations then." Loki held up his glass and ruthlessly squashed the niggling irritation he felt resurface at Tony's obvious pleasure at having his friend back. After all, he only had himself to blame for that state of affairs.

Loki took a sip of his wine and then another longer one.

"Good then?" Tony asked eagerly.

"Whatever memory you've drawn upon is an excellent vintage."

Tony smiled brilliantly at that and Loki felt the knot inside unwind. It was moments like these that had led him to become fond of him... And that was a thought better left to consider another time.

For the moment Loki was going to indulge in the unfettered joy of Tony at the return of his friend, and his own satisfaction at a piece of his plan falling into place.

~*~*~*~*~*~

They looked up at the massive machine towering over them.

"That's it then, you've finished it."

" _We've_ finished it. This would have taken twice as long without you."

Loki felt a little burst of pleasure at the admission. Tony wasn't a man liberal with his praise, but he always gave it where he felt it was deserved. The part of Loki that had grown knotted over the centuries, at the lack of praise where he had felt it deserved, had slowly unravelled under the months of working together.

Tony couldn't possibly undo all of the damage that had been done, but there was an ease there he had with no other. Even Baldur, whom was his waking companion more often than not these days, couldn't quite compare. With Baldur he still had to play at being Odin, with Tony he was simply himself, and the other never seemed question it. Somewhere along the way Tony had decided Loki was the embodiment of all of his own issues and irritations over the years, and it had given Loki a sense of freedom within the walls of these dreams that he hadn't felt in years. There were still knots and tangles that might never be undone, but in this place they didn't feel so tight and restrictive.

"If I'm a piece of you, like you so often like to remind me, then it's still you."

"Not in here, here we're us." Tony said it so matter-of-factly, Loki couldn't help a grin.

"So we are. That still begs the question, what's next?"

"Well when I wake up I'll finalise the digital models and begin production."

"And here?"

"Huh... You know, I hadn't really considered it. This project has taken up the better part of a year. Way to go, I was in the mood to celebrate and now I'm at loose ends." Tony's grin belied the scold.

Loki cheered a little inside, this was just the opportunity he needed. The jäger would be helpful in the coming battle, but it wouldn't be enough.

"Well we've recreated one film tech, why not move on to another?"

"What did you have in mind ?" Tony asked, intrigued.

"Space flight."

Tony chuckled at that. "It's a long jump from recreating a jäger to the Enterprise."

"Of course it is, that's why we start smaller. A high orbital craft. No one outside the space agencies have managed it, and government enthusiasm for the projects have waned."

"You have a point." Loki could see the gears already turning in Tony's mind. "Let's go talk specs over our celebratory drinks."

Loki grinned. "I'd be delighted."

~*~*~*~*~*~

The Stark shuttle had successfully completed her inaugural flight and it was a night to celebrate. Tony's dream state had always given some reflection of his waking state, but this night had shown it in particular. Tony was well into his cups before Loki had even arrived. They wouldn't get any work done on the shuttle's mark 2 this night, but Loki found he could hardly begrudge him his celebrations. In only 11 months they had gone from concept to implementation, it was a success by anyone's measure.

That the board of Stark Industries were interested as well, enough to authorise R&D budget towards the project so it wouldn't come entirely out of Tony's own pocket from now on, was even better. With the extra resources the mark 2 just might be ready after all. Thanos' approach was drawing near, and this piece of the puzzle falling into place was one less thing for him to worry about.

With that in mind, Loki had joined Tony in his celebrations wholeheartedly, producing his own bottle of Vanir honey wine for the occasion. Deep into his own cups as well, Loki was comfortable and relaxed as he sprawled on Tony's couch, Tony leaning into his side.

A warm feeling suffused Loki as he contemplated how naturally they fit together. Perhaps he really had come to care for the mortal as more than a distraction or a means to an end. "Or maybe it's the wine," he murmured aloud.

"What was that?" Tony looked up from pouring another glass of scotch.

"I think I need more wine." Loki held up the empty bottle.

"Well you can fix that yourself," Tony said with a grin and took a sip of his scotch.

"Some host you are," Loki grumbled, but he turned his gaze on the bottle anyway and it quickly filled back up.

"Host? Ha! This place is as much yours as mine these days."

There was that warmth again, but Loki refused to let it turn him into some sort of pathetic sap. "Well then, if this is my home as well, I demand some entertainment!"

"Okay bossy-pants, what did you have in mind?"

Loki thought for a moment, then stood with a wicked grin as traditional Asir folk music began to play. "Dancing." Tony was far too drunk for more than the most basic of Asir dances, it should prove highly entertaining.

Tony looked at him dubiously. "I think I had my fill of formal dancing earlier at the party with Pepper."

"Come now Tony, it will be fun, I'll teach you a new dance. Unless you don't think you can keep up?"

"I'm not that easy to bait."

"Alright then, a wager. I bet you are too far into your bottle of scotch to manage to learn the dance properly. If I win I get to pick the music in the hanger for the next week."

Tony stood up now, looking determined. "And _when_ I win, you have to dance to the kind of music I want."

Loki grinned and made his armour disappear, so he could better show off the steps, as he beckoned Tony forward. "Terms accepted. Now you begin like this..."

He should have known better than to make a bet with Tony, Loki thought a while later as Tony finished the dance near-perfectly. It was truly impressive given his lack of experience and level of inebriation, and he paused a moment to consider that perhaps in a realm within the mind that Tony's mental coordination might trump his inhibited physical coordination.

"Well?" Tony grinned at him, he knew he'd done well.

"I don't know, you didn't quite get the flourish in the second section..."

That earn Loki an amused smirk, one of Loki's favourite expressions Tony wore. Of course it wasn't usually worn at his own expense.

"You know anything I don't have down is practice related finesse. Admit it, I won."

Loki heaved a dramatic sigh. "Very well, if you are incapable of conceding defeat gracefully then I suppose I must instead."

"Uhuh, if that's what it takes to salvage your pride." From anyone else that comment would rankle, but from Tony he knew it for the light-hearted tease it was.

The lighting dimmed and a few coloured spotlights lit the room artfully, then the music stated. If you could call it that, Loki thought.

It was the kind of music that would be right at home in the clubs of Ibiza, and there was something visceral to the heavy beat that underlay it all.

"And exactly what kind of dancing is done to this noise?"

"Nothing formal," Tony said with a grin and moved in front of Loki, grabbing his hips. "You have to _feel_ the music."

Tony started moving, pulling Loki along with him. He was resistant at first, trying to understand this so called dance, but gradually he unbent, relaxing into Tony's lead. It was as Tony had said, there didn't seem to be any particular steps, you just moved with the music.

A sensual sort of give and take began as they took turns leaning into each other's space, then falling back. Loki couldn't tell where one song ended and another began as the music just flowed onward, pulling them with it. The space between them closed until they were pressed together chest to hip. It was like a trance, drawing them in until they and the music were the only things left in existence.

Just how much their dance resembled foreplay didn't occur to him until he felt the growing hardness between them as Tony ground their hips together.

Loki jumped back like he'd been shocked by a live wire, eyes open wide. Tony looked at him with a frown and maybe even a bit of hurt.

"I think we've had enough dancing for tonight," Loki said, trying to put the authority he used as Odin into his voice, though he wasn't so sure he'd succeeded. "Why don't we watch one of those movies you're so fond of? Something space related seems appropriate."

The music stopped and the coloured lights went out, leaving the room in a muted glow. Tony looked disappointed, but resigned and he turned back to the couch.

"Alright, some classic Trek I suppose," Tony said, though there wasn't the usual enthusiasm in his voice.

Loki steeled himself against the urge to call Tony back. None of this was truly real, and Tony wasn't meant for him in that way. It was better to stop this now, than let it go on and ruin everything.

"That sounds good," Loki said, trying to put some enthusiasm into his voice and following back over to the couch.

The rest of the night would pass quietly, and Loki wouldn't fall into the trap of letting Tony so close beside him again.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Loki was grateful when the awkwardness that had sprung up between them started to dissipate a couple of visits later. An undercurrent of _something_ lingered though, despite Loki's attempts to ignore it and his hope it would just go away if he did so.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Tony threw down his wrench and looked over at Loki irritability.

Loki quirked a brow at him. "Is something wrong?"

"You know damn well it is."

"I'm afraid despite sharing these dreams with you I am not actually a mind reader."

"Alright, we're playing it that way then." Tony scowled at him. "I could accept when you rejected me last month. Didn't like it, but accept it yeah. But then I keep catching you looking at me like a starving man brought to a buffet and told he can't eat. So exactly what am I supposed to be thinking here?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You can do better than that, Silvertongue."

"How I am or am not looking at you should not matter, you already have a partner and I am a dream."

"You're a hell of a lot more than just a dream."

Loki felt a moment of panic. There was no way Tony could have figured out the truth, was there? Tony and Baldur were the bright points in his existence, and Baldur was as much an obligation as a pleasure. If he lost this...

"I spend more nights than not with you these days. I've never stopped to actually quantify it, but between business, the Avengers and other things that keep us apart, I'm sure I've spent more time with you the last two and a half years than her."

The flash of panic was gone, but Loki became wary. It had been some time since Tony had seemed a strange and unpredictable creature to him, but he had become one once more.

"You wouldn't leave her for a dream," because that's all Loki could ever be to him.

"No I wouldn't." Despite himself, Loki felt a pang at that. "Because this world and that one are separate. Pepper can't come here, any more than you can go there. So why do things have to be mutually exclusive."

That caught Loki by surprise, but he fell into the role of devil's advocate. "I doubt it's healthy to try to develop a relationship with a figment of your imagination."

"Too late, we already have one, whether it's a friendship or something else. It's probably not healthy to lucid dream the better part of most nights, but I do that anyway." Tony frowned and studied him. "Is that why you were holding back, to protect me from myself?"

"It seemed... unwise."

"Ah, for you as well. Jeez, you really are the embodiment of all my younger insecurities sometimes."

Loki wanted to bristle at that, but it was a comment that had been made before, and always without derision or true condemnation. Rather it just highlighted the ways in which they were similar given that Tony readily accepted those traits of Loki's just meant he was a part of Tony himself.

Tony walked forward, getting right up into Loki's personal space, but he refused to be seen as weak and back away. "What are you doing?"

"You have become as much a part of me as I am. I'm not going to push you away for having what you want. You're allowed happiness."

"You wouldn't be saying that if I was the real Loki," he murmured, and it gave Tony pause. That he stopped to actually consider his words for a moment was what gave them weight Loki couldn't dismiss.

"Yeah, I think I would."

Didn't mean he didn't try to anyway. "Why ever would you?"

"You've spent the better part of the last two years helping me design and build tech to protect this world. If you were really the Loki that tried to take over the world in New York it shows a serious realignment of priorities, and would make me wonder what your reasons really were back then because an about face like that doesn't come from someone who believes in what they were doing."

Loki stared at Tony in shock for a moment, before reaching out to grab him and pull him in for a deep and thorough kiss. Tony gave an appreciative hum, gripping Loki just as tightly in return, and he was grinning when they finally pulled apart.

His expression abruptly turned thoughtful and it put Loki back on edge. "What?"

"You _aren't_ that Loki, are you?"

"That Loki is dead."

"So he is..."

Loki could still see the wheels turning and that just wouldn't do. "Enough talk," he said and pulled Tony back in for another kiss. Carnal pleasures were always a good way to distract Tony and he would happily provide the distraction.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Odin had always looked old to Baldur, but his energy and passion had belied his age and made him seem younger than he was. As he approached the throne this time, however, it struck him just how ancient Odin really was. The weight of his years and responsibility seemed to sit upon him like a mantel.

"My King," Baldur greeted as he dropped to one knee.

"My heir... It is time, the Titan approaches Midgard. He will be there in at most three of their weeks, as little as two."

"You are certain, the farsight has never given you such a precise information on him before now."

Odin smiled wry. "It is not the sight that tells me, it is the reach of the Odinforce."

"He has reached the boarders of the Nine."

"He has."

"I will ready our warriors and mages."

"See our people and the midgardians through the coming battle and when the dust settles I shall crown you king."

Baldur bowed his head. "I will be a credit to you, I swear it."

" _No_." Baldur looked up at the harshness of his tone, and Odin's gaze and words softened as he continued. "No, if these are the only words of mine you keep with you, remember this. Live your life to be a credit to yourself, living for others' expectations only leads to bitterness."

Baldur nodded in his earnest way. "Of course my King, they are wise words indeed."

"Ones I wish I'd learned younger," Odin said wryly. "Now go, we have not the time to waste."

Baldur stood. "I will make haste," he said and turned to leave and gather his troops.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Loki was relieved when the penthouse materialised around him. It had been getting harder to project himself the last few weeks, and it had only gotten worse with the amount of magic he had expended sending reinforcements from Vanaheim to Midgard.

The battle had been worse than even he had envisioned, but the reinforcements and Tony's inventions had turned the tide in the end. Captain Rogers would be eating his words about the usefulness of the jägers.

He looked around, the lights were dimmed and it was very quiet, not at all what he thought he'd find. He'd been expecting to see Tony celebrating his victory and have to convince him into a lazy night, but that didn't seem to be the case.

Finally he spotted Tony laying on the couch, a bottle of Jack on the ground beside him. That's when Loki knew his expectations were all wrong. He walked over and sat quietly on the cushion next to Tony's head. Without a word he began carding his fingers through Tony's hair.  
When Tony finally opened his eyes some time later, Loki knew the look within them, felt it keenly to his very soul. It was the same look he was certain he'd worn the day Frigga died.

"You lost someone in the battle," he said softly.

Tony closed his eyes again and turned his cheek into Loki's touch. "We lost a lot of people in the battle," Tony rasped out, his voice sounding raw with spent tears.

"Yes, many soldiers gave their lives to the cause, but _you_ lost someone," Loki pressed.

"Wanda and Pete didn't make it through the final battle..."

Tony and Wanda had never managed more than a professional relationship given how their pasts had intersected. The young Spider-Man had caught his eye, the potential for a protégé in the brilliance and clever tongue, but he had hardly been around the team long enough for Tony to build the depth of attachment required for this sort of grief.

"And...?" Loki prompted gently.

"Rhodey..." Tony's voice was flat, inflectionless, and Loki immediately understood the grief.

There were no platitudes that could be said to soothe this grief. The loss of a rock in the raging river, of an anchor through the years, these things must be mourned properly, for they left a mark on the soul.

They fell back into silence for some time, and Loki thought perhaps Tony had fallen asleep within his own dream. Then a flurry of movement came and his empty lap was now straddled, Tony meeting his gaze with a maniac look of his own.

"Make me feel something else. Pepper can't help, she misses him nearly as much as I do. You don't care, you have no reason to."

Loki's hand cupped Tony's cheek. "I care about his passing because it brings you grief, because I care about you," Loki admitted for the first time so bluntly.

"Then make me feel better," Tony said and leaned in for a demanding kiss.

Loki could not deny him, and their hands worked frantically to divest each other of clothes.

It was a dreamscape, either of them could have divested them both of their clothes with but a thought. Tony needed this though, the primal, visceral feel that came with tearing each other's clothes off, of subsuming himself into the act, and Loki would not take that from him.

When they were both bare, not a scrap between them, Loki pressed Tony down to the couch beneath him. They had sought release together before, but this was different. Where they had been athletic or adventurous in the past, this was raw and driven. Loki sought not to tease, but to overwhelm. To flood every inch of Tony's being with the here and now, until all that was left was this moment, over and over again.

And when they lay there, spent in the aftermath, and the tears began to fall, Loki wrapped his arms around him and rolled them to hold Tony against his chest. Grief would only be spent in its own time, but Loki would be an anchor for him against its torrential pull.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Something was wrong, he could feel himself being pulled off course between Tony and Odin, feel the piece that had travelled and the piece that had stayed behind being pushed back together somewhere in between, and it was the doing of neither himself or his drained reserves.

It was as he coalesced into the void that he understood what was happening, and the image of Tony grieving filled his mind.

"No!" he shouted. "I won't go yet, you cannot have me," he all but screamed into the void.

' _But I can, our deal is complete,_ ' She said behind him.

Loki whipped around and Mistress Death was there, looking at him placidly.

"I'm not ready to leave."

' _I would collect far fewer souls if I waited until they all were ready._ ' She tilted her head, considering him like a puzzle. ' _There is nothing for you to fear now, you have used your time well and ice no longer awaits you. Your favoured vessel will be with me soon as well._ '

Loki felt a slight pang at the knowledge Odin would soon be dead. It didn't matter that he essentially had been already these last few years, and that Loki himself had felt the final weakness drawing near. There was a finality about Mistress Death saying it, to which none of the rest could compare.

"I must see to it that Baldur is crowned and the Odinforce is passed to him properly. You sent me back to protect the worlds, will you withdraw me before I can ensure Asgard's survival?"

' _I sent you to orchestrate the collection of something that was mine... Which you managed even more quickly than my expectations. I suppose that does merit some form of reward._ '

"Then send me back to finish what I have started."

Mistresses Death considered him a moment and then her lips turned up in a sly, knowing smile. It was unsettling, juxtaposed as it was with a skeleton's grin.

' _I will send you back, but you will be able to inhabit only one more vessel after Odin. You will be reaped along with the vessel you are in when they pass. Choose wisely, trickster._ '

She reached up and pressed a finger to Loki's forehead, and he felt his soul thrown back into Odin's body with the force of a blow from Thor's hammer.

'Odin' opened his eyes to see the ceiling of his bedchamber. He could feel this body fading now, more keenly than ever before. There wasn't much time left and there was more still to do.

~*~*~*~*~*~

The coronation had been grand, even more so than Thor's aborted festivities would have been. The people needed to celebrate, and their young and valiant new king was more than enough excuse. It was none too soon, either. Loki could feel it, Odin's form was within Mistress Death's reach.

Every trick and spell he had couldn't add any more time, and when he'd tried to speak with Odin's soul the night before – one last time – it had been out of his reach. He could feel the frailness seeping into his own soul now, as he sat to the side looking out over the feast. This would be it, if he didn't leave, Mistress Death would claim him alongside Odin. He could delay no longer.

"Sir..."

'Odin' startled, lost in his thought as he had been. Loki turned a faint smile upon Baldur, he should have known if there was one person in this room that would not forget about him in their merriment, it would be him.

"Enjoying your celebration?"

"You arranged a most wonderful feast. I do not think a person in this room could be said to not be enjoying themselves... Except perhaps you?" Baldur looked upon him with concern.

"I am enjoying myself, my son, do not worry yourself on that. I am an old man, and I tire easily. It is gratifying to watch you and the others making the most of the fruits of my labour."

"Perhaps I should send for one of the servants to see you to bed. You shouldn't push yourself."

Loki thought about telling him the truth, that it was unlikely Odin – in any form – would see the morning sunrise. There was a time when he would have, when he was so starved for the spotlight that he wouldn't have hesitated to drawn everyone's attention to himself. That time was passed now.

He would hardly consider himself altruistic, he was selfish at heart and he knew it. This night, though, it was the culmination of everything he'd spent his after-death working toward, and he would not see it spoiled even by his own need for attention.

"No, I wish to remain a bit longer. To watch the people celebrate your rule." 'Odin' smiled tiredly. "You should go back to the people, enjoy yourself. There will be mourning to return to soon enough, this is a time for happiness and goodwill."

"If you are certain."

"I am... The people are lucky to have you, if you are half a diligent with their concerns and needs in the future as you have been with mine. It seems what the humans say is true."

Baldur looked at him curiously.

"Third time's the charm. My first son was raised for the throne, but not suited to it. My second was raised in its shadow and grew to resent it. But you, you were not meant for it and here you are, the most suitable candidate I could have sit upon it. My work is finally done."

There was a sense of relief and peace in those final words, and perhaps they weren't just Loki's alone. Loki felt a peace as he spoke them that he did not think had come entirely from within. Baldur looked at him curiously, but he did not question. Loki didn't bother to enlighten him, he would understand soon enough.

"Thank you, my k... my lord. I am glad to have pleased you, and our people."

"Go on now, you can forget the intricacies of honour for one night. You should enjoy your coronation. I have no doubt your sense of responsibility will see you burdened plenty by the morning."

"Of course. Enjoy the music then, and just call for me if you should need me."

Baldur turned and walked back into the crowd, whom cheered at his return. 'Odin' settled further into the furs lining his chair and watched, content. As good-byes went, he'd had worse.

~*~*~*~*~*~

His spirit rushed through the nothingness between where he was and where he wished to be. It was the right time of day for the often scant sleep Tony got, but it had been more erratic since the final battle, and he hadn't dared make the journey in the last few days. Saving his strength, because he knew for better or worse this would be the last time he made the trip.

Loki found himself taking form in a corner of the lab and he breathed a little sigh of relief. That was a good sign for Tony's state of mind as much as everything else and this wasn't a conversation he wanted to have while Tony was distracted.

He walked up and looked over Tony's shoulder at the schematics he was working on. A design for a condensed automotive hydrogen fuel cell, nothing weaponised was another good sign.

"I'm having an issue getting the weight where I want it. You want to have a look and see if I'm missing something?" Tony asked without looking up.

"Perhaps later..." Of course that would depend on how Tony took the first conversation he wanted to have. Not that he _wanted_ to as such, part of him said to savour as much time in their normal fashion as possible before broaching the topic in case it didn't go well. He couldn't take the risk though, Mistress Death could come to collect at any time now and he needed to know Tony's answer.

He must have given something away in his tone, as Tony finally looked up from what he was doing and spun around on his stool to face Loki with a little frown. "You never pass up the chance to show me up, what's going on?"

"I haven't been entirely honest with you."

"You're Loki, God of Lies amongst other things, of course you haven't."

"I'm being serious, Tony."

"So am I." Tony's frown deepened. "What's brought this on?"

"Do you remember when you told me I was more than just a dream?"

"I could hardly forget..."

"And you asked me if I was ' _that_ Loki'."

"And you reminded me he's dead." Tony frowned, trying to figure out where this was going. "I know this is technically a dream, but if you're about to tell me he's alive and somehow you, I'm going to wonder about your plot creativity. It's a little soap-operaishly unoriginal."

Loki smiled wryly. "Oh no, he is very much dead, and yet he somehow is me."

"So you're what, a ghost?" Tony looked at him sceptically.

"More than a spirit, less than alive. I struck a bargain with the physical manifestation of death."

"A bargain that lets you walk into my dreams when you please."

"That wasn't the point of the agreement, but it turned out to be one of the more pleasant benefits."

Tony still didn't look convinced, but he chose to play along. "So why tell me now, after all these years."

"I'm running out of time. My link to this world is dying and if I don't choose a new one before they do, Death will take me with them. I had hoped you would be that link."

"I was wrong, this isn't a soap-opera, this is definitely a ghost story. Next thing you'll be telling me is this link or whatever would allow you to posses me."

"Allow yes, but I wouldn't. Not unless your life depended on it in some way."

"And I'm just supposed to say yes to this."

"No, but I had hoped perhaps after all this time I had earned enough trust that you would. That perhaps my constant companionship would outweigh the risk."

This was it, the moment of truth. The vulnerability he was afraid of when Tony had called him out on his feelings once before couldn't compare to this.

"I've officially lost it."

"Pardon?" Of all the responses Loki had imagined, that wasn't one.

"I knew this constant lucid dreaming wasn't entirely healthy, and now grief has finished the job. My psyche has come up with an excuse to have you around more and indefinitely."

"No, Tony, no..." Loki closed the distance between them, gripping Tony's shoulders. "I am real, as real as you, if much less corporeal."

"So what, when I die, you'll move onto someone else. Find another person to fill your time?"

"No, this is the last time. My work's done, I am only allowed to change my anchor one last time."

"Then why aren't you picking someone longer-lived, an Asgardian?"

Loki gave a wry smile, but unlike the ones when he first started walking these dreams, there wasn't a trace of bitterness within it. "Because I am selfish. I have done what I promised and more, a legacy I am pleased with, even if I am the only one to ever fully understand the extent of it. Now I wish to spend my remaining years indulging in what has become my favourite pastime, _you_."

"There have been times... moments when you've known things I shouldn't know, at least I don't think I should."

"This is why."

"It could still be explained with coincidence, a really healthy imagination or some lucky subconscious overhearing."

"I can't prove it to you now, the things I could tell you would all take longer to prove than I have time for."

"This is insane..."

"Any more insane than carrying on a relationship with a figment of your imagination?"

Tony gave a surprised laugh. "No, I suppose not." He put his hands over Loki's. "So either all this is true, or my imagination has decided to go really elaborate... and either way, I don't think I honestly care. I don't want to give you up, even if I should. Pepper is my rock when I'm awake, and you... You and this place have become my refuge when I'm not."

Loki felt his heart clench in anticipation, did that mean...?

"So, yes, I'll be your anchor thing, if that's what I need to do to keep you."

A grin of pure, unadulterated pleasure lit Loki's face. "You have my word I shall make it worth your while."

"At the very least it'll keep things interesting."

"That it will."

Loki leaned down and caught Tony's lips in a deep and possessive kiss, even as he called the rest of himself there. What remained of his life would be lived in these dreams, but what wonderful dreams they were.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Loki stood to one side of the bedroom. No one would see him projected in this fashion, but it was always unpleasant when someone walked through him.

Pepper sat at the bedside, head bent over where her hand grasped Tony's, long white hair spilling forward. The time was growing near, there was nothing more Loki could do to delay it and he wanted to be waiting when it happened.

He wasn't the only one that knew it was coming, many friends – some as close as family – had been through the room in the last few days. Tony didn't wake anymore to speak with them. It was all his ageing heart could do to keep beating, but in the end it would be his lungs that would give out. 40 years on the palladium poisoning would get him after-all, in the form of cancer this time. The difference was he wasn't suffering alone now, and the painkillers that were all that the doctors could provide had let him say his goodbyes. This time Tony would face his death without regrets hanging over his head.

Tony took a deep breath and opened his eyes. "Pep..." he murmured.

She lifted her head, tears shined on her cheeks. "Tony..."

Once upon a time Loki might have been jealous as he watched his lover speak quietly with another, sharing what would be his last waking words with someone else. He'd shared Tony with Pepper from the beginning though, not that she ever knew it, and he would let her have this without interference.

Tony smiled tiredly as Pepper leaned back up from speaking with him. He lifted a shaky hand up to her cheek, gently brushing the tears from her skin. Despite the white hair and the aged skin, those looking on could still see the something that had made them the power couple that graced all the magazines years ago. It hadn't just been their looks, or their money that had gotten them there. The devotion in Tony's eyes was plain to see.

"I love you Pep, but I think I need to sleep some more now."

"Alright, Tony." Pepper took his hand, giving it a little squeeze as she managed a watery smile for him. "You just close your eyes and rest now, I'll be right here."

Tony gave a contented sigh and closed his eyes. His breathing evened out as he fell back asleep, and then it slowed. A breath, a pause, a breath, and then no more. Tony was still, and Pepper rested her forehead on their joined hands. Others rested their hands on her back and shoulders, offering their silent support.

"It's not a dream this time."

Loki looked to his right, and there Tony stood, looking not a day over 50, just as he'd been when they had taken the last step in binding their fates together.

"No, it's not."

"Guess I wasn't insane then." Tony finally looked at him, a wry smile tugging at his lips.

Loki gave a little laugh. "I don't know about that, but you certainly did not imagine me."

"You weren't what I'd have expected you to be. Even when I believe that maybe all of what you said really was true, some part of me still thought that had to have been my own subconscious' influence on your characterisation."

"You never really knew me when I was alive – beyond recognising a few similarities between us – did you?"

"No, I don't suppose I did." Tony mulled it over for a few moments as he watched the doctor be called into the room, and the sheet be pulled up over the older version of his own face. "So are you actually a ghost this time, is that what I am now? Cause I always thought they were supposed to be the product of 'unfinished business' and I don't feel like I have any of that. It's sad to see them grieving, but I'm content with how I went out, and I know they'll look after Pep."

"If by ghosts you mean apparitions destined to haunt this world, no, we're not." Loki's lips quirked in the amused smile Tony had so grown to love. "We're spirits, the remaining energy of what our lives once were, and we'll move on to Mistress Death's domain shortly. I had thought you might like a moment to ask questions before we were on our way though, and it seems I was right."

"You know me so well."

"After 40 years in your dreams, I would hope so."

"They were good dreams."

"Indeed they were."

"Did you really hang around for 40 years just to haunt my dreams?"

Loki chuckled at that. "No, just the last 30 or so. I wanted to spend some time enjoying something important you helped me find again."

Tony looked at him curiously.

"Happiness."

"Well... You certainly didn't seem to have much of that in New York."

"No, I'd lost it well before then."

"And you found it again because of me."

"You played a part. I could have gone on before now, left when Odin did instead of coming to you that night, but I enjoyed my time with you, and I thought I would wait so we could begin this last adventure together. If you'd like that, of course."

Tony grinned at him. "Yeah, works for me. The commentary should be good at least."

"When you're ready then," Loki said, and he opened a door behind them that lead to a dark hall.

Despite the lack of light or visible end to the hall, Tony didn't feel anything foreboding about it. He looked back at his loved ones, watching them for a few more moments as they supported each other. Reassured himself that Pepper wouldn't actually be alone now that he was gone.

"I'll see them again some day."

"I've been told death is what you make of it. If you wish to see them again, I'm certain you will. After all, there is very little Tony Stark can't achieve when he puts his mind to it."

Tony smiled a bit at that, because there was none of Loki's trademark sarcasm in his words, just calm assurance. A few moments more and he looked away, meeting Loki's eyes.

"Time to go then."

Loki nodded and together they turned to the open doorway and stepped through. Side-by-side they would walk together into whatever was next.

~*~ Fin ~*~

**Author's Note:**

> Once again this isn't the story I originally set out to write at the start of this fest. I was going to use the next instalment of the Green Blanket verse, but while I thought I could make it stand alone, it was going to require conscientious care to both make it stand alone and not be repetitive for someone who'd already read the rest of the series and I decided I just had too much on my plate this summer to balance that. After that I started looking for prompts, nothing fit. So I just stopped working on it all together, and avoided the boys entirely for a week in favour of reading some Barduil fic (all Hella's fault). Turns out it was the right thing to do, because the opening lines of this story came to me unexpected one morning at work, and by the time I was home for dinner I had a fully developed concept and the final scene all worked out.


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